From San Diego Scientists
New books, music, art, and notable research papers from San Diego County's scientists, and from the artists and writers who work alongside them, chosen by chapter members. A short synopsis of each, and where to read, hear, see, or buy it. Updated monthly.
August 2026
-
Book · NYU Press · August 2026
Science Fiction Ecologies: Worldmaking with Butler, Le Guin, and Merril
Shelley Streeby
An archival study of how Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Judith Merril followed environmental news, colonial history, and militarism to imagine alternative futures. A case for science fiction as a serious way of thinking about ecology and climate.
-
Research paper · Nature Neuroscience · August 2026
Social isolation recruits amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex projections to escalate alcohol drinking in male mice
Kay Tye, PhD, and Reesha Patel, PhD
Being isolated switches on a circuit between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex that drives male mice to drink more alcohol, while the same circuit reduces drinking in females. Activity in the circuit predicts how much an animal will drink, pointing to a possible risk marker for alcohol use disorder and a reason treatments may need to differ by sex.
-
Research paper · Cell Reports Methods · August 2026
Dye-cycling DNA origami rotors for long-term tracking of transcription at base-pair resolution
Pallav Kosuri, PhD, and Amanda L. Wacker, PhD
A DNA-origami rotor that keeps swapping in fresh fluorescent tags lets researchers watch a single RNA polymerase turn as it reads DNA, one base pair at a time, for ten minutes instead of seconds. It opens a direct window on the physical motions behind gene expression.
-
Book · Wesleyan University Press · August 2026
Safe Rooms
Rae Armantrout
Poems about the temporary shelters people build against an unstable world. Armantrout has long drawn her vocabulary from physics and cosmology; this collection includes "The Uncertainty Principle," in which an atom is "localized by an interaction."
-
Book · Simon & Schuster · August 2026
Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination
Cassandra Vieten, PhD
A clinical psychologist and UC San Diego researcher explains what the brain is doing when we imagine, why the capacity varies so much between people, and how it can be deliberately strengthened to improve mood, creativity, and relationships. Foreword by Pixar's Pete Docter.
July 2026
-
Research paper · Science · July 2026
A body-wide single-cell atlas of 3D genome folding and DNA methylation
Joseph Ecker, PhD, Jesse Dixon, MD, PhD, Jingtian Zhou, PhD, and Yue Wu
The first atlas to map how DNA folds and how it is chemically tagged, together, in 86,689 individual cells across 16 human tissues. Because most disease-linked genetic variants sit in non-coding DNA, the atlas helps connect those variants to the cell types and genes they affect, and the data are free for anyone to use.
-
Research paper · Nature Biotechnology · July 2026
A genome-scale CRISPRi perturbation atlas of human induced pluripotent stem cells
Prashant Mali, PhD, Sami Nourreddine, and Yesh Doctor
Using CRISPR to switch off 11,692 genes one at a time in human stem cells, and reading the result in more than 2.5 million single cells, the team built an open reference map of what each gene does. It gives researchers a starting point for modelling complex diseases and finding patient-specific treatment targets.
-
Research paper · Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface · July 2026
Real-time ground deformation records of coastal cliff failures in San Diego County
Adam Young, PhD, and Mark Zumberge, PhD
Four years of sensitive ground instruments at Del Mar, Torrey Pines, San Elijo, and Beacon's Beach picked up movement hours to days before five cliff collapses. The authors conclude a warning system is feasible, which matters on a coast where a 2019 collapse in Encinitas killed three people.
June 2026
-
Research paper · Nature · June 2026
Vaccination elicits HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies in primates
William Schief, PhD, and Shane Crotty, PhD
A sequence of designed immunizations steered rare precursor immune cells, step by step, toward antibodies that neutralize many HIV strains; serum from about 44 percent of vaccinated primates did so in the lab. It is a proof of principle for guiding the immune system toward protection against fast-mutating viruses, though the regimen is still too long for real-world use.
-
Book · Algonquin Books · June 2026
Noticing: Intimate Encounters with the Natural World
Richard Louv
Louv's most personal book: what happens when you slow down and use every sense in the wild edge of your own backyard, and why that restores a feeling of wonder. Grounded in the growing body of research on nature and health, and launched at Warwick's in La Jolla.
-
Research paper · Nature · June 2026
C-glycoside synthesis via radical cross-coupling of glycohydrazides
Phil Baran, PhD, with Varinder Aggarwal, PhD
A simpler way to build the tough carbon–sugar bond at the heart of SGLT2 diabetes drugs, starting from cheap table sugar and a mild acid instead of many protection steps and hazardous reagents. It could make these medicines faster and cheaper to manufacture and open the door to other sugar-based compounds.
-
Book · Cambridge University Press · June 2026
How to Critically Read the Scientific Research Literature: Introducing the CERIC Method
Genevive Bjorn, EdD, and Adam J. Burgasser, PhD
A five-question method (claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, context) for getting through a research paper and judging what it really shows, tested with hundreds of doctoral students. Useful for anyone who reads science, from students to science-fair judges.
Buy from Cambridge University Press UC San Diego Today story →
May 2026
-
Performance · ArtPower, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, UC San Diego · May 2026
The Inaudible Ocean
Lei Liang, with Joshua Jones
An hour-long, seven-movement work built from seafloor recordings slowed into the range of human hearing, with live instruments answering whale calls and cracking ice. Premiered to a sold-out hall in May; a recording is online.
-
Exhibition · Gallery QI, Qualcomm Institute, UC San Diego · May 2026
There Exist Microplastics in My Subconscious and They Are Seeping into My Dreams
Pinar Yoldas
A continuation of Yoldas's decade-long work on plastic pollution, imagining the environmental and evolutionary consequences of microplastics through sculpture and installation. Shown at Gallery QI in May and June.
April 2026
-
Album · New Focus Recordings · April 2026
Six Seasons: Instrumentation Lab
Lei Liang, with Joshua Jones as scientific advisor
A two-disc album that follows the six-part cycle of Arctic seasons, with soloists and ensemble responding to processed hydrophone recordings from the Chukchi Sea off Alaska that document the sea ice forming and breaking up each year.
-
Book · Open Road Media (revised and expanded edition) · April 2026
Through Stranger Eyes: Reviews, Introductions, Tributes, and Iconoclastic Essays
David Brin
Forty-seven essays by a working scientist who is also one of science fiction's best-known novelists: on Tolkien, Asimov, Clarke, Orwell, Feynman, The Matrix, and the craft of imagining futures that hold up to scrutiny.
Suggest a publication
Published something this year, or read something by a San Diego scientist that deserves a wider audience? Email Steve Rosen at stephen.d.rosen@gmail.com with the title, author, and a link. Books, papers, albums, exhibitions, and films with a San Diego science connection are all welcome.